PADRE FRAY ALBERTO E. JUSTO, O.P.

RULE FOR HERMITS

Originally published, Santa Fe de la Vera Cruz, Centro de Estudios San Jerónimo, 1996, English translation, James Hannay,
1998

For those of us who live anywhere;

In the world or outside it
or beyond all the world
and in whatever time.

READER:
Grasp the opportunity to spurn this world and follow the Lord. Don't doubt for an
instant. Don't stay gazing at the road stretching behind you nor, rapt in fantasy, call up
ghosts of a future that is not and, surely, never will be.
Let go. Venture forth along the paths to Eternity lying before you now. They are not only
long but are also, in this very moment, wide open before you.
Perhaps you were thinking that you could achieve a better life by moving about
or escaping time. None of that. Here you will find a little path that will take you through
both time and space. You will pass through them to the other side. Then further.
Don't let your past disturb you. Don't fret about tomorrow. You are simply here and now
with the Lord. He it is who calls you.
And you need know nothing else. Don't get lost by taking a shortcut, nor be deflected
into your own labyrinth. Don't justify yourself, seeking reasons to escape from the path
to the Lord. Do not be dazzled by illusions of a world that is perishing.
Here we do not intend to step off the cliff of death. Here we pray to our Lord for
salvation. . . . We may not presume to teach without learning how to fling open the doors
to the Saviour.
Open these pages and find that there is something between them: the blessing of an
invitation to ascend much higher. They are only a starting point.

FIRST PART
Conduct and Attitudes during the Day
1. When beginning the day, arm yourself, Reader, with the Sign of the Cross and
consecrate it, all of it, in a brief act to the Lord.
2. Explicitly renounce, with a very short prayer, any vanity or distraction during the day.
Make it your purpose, sincerely, not to be separated from the Lord. Remember St John
of the Cross's teaching, that only God is worthy of our thoughtfulness.
3. Ask, finally, with prayer and invocation, for the grace of contemplation and
perseverance.
4. Know that the devil will tempt you with many distractions or worries under the guise
of good reason. Reject these deceits with vigour and don't live as if turned inside out but
be ready and on guard. Ask the Lord for the gift of discernment and seek peace. Let your
principle ascesis be silence.
5. Not taking on too much will achieve the best results. May you overcome depression
and achieve quietness, listening to the inner silence. The Lord desires neither your
busyness nor your things, but all you are. Waste no time.
6. The world, which touches you on pilgrimage, resembles chaos. Most people in cities
live in disorder and disharmony. Don't be afraid, nor let yourself be caught up in any
snare. Above all, pay no heed to what is ephemeral.
7. The left hand need not know what the right is doing. Let the day elapse in
forgetfulness of oneself.
8. Remember that greatness always turns out uncomfortably. With the help of God you
will overcome any obstacle. The Word of God, in the hardship and incomprehension of
this world, in its humiliation and obedience, doesn't lose greatness but rather is exalted.
9. Don't rush about. Stop and be still. Don't take one thing after another impetuously.
Have courage to let go of what is driving you. Don't run behind anything. Turn around to
close doors carefully when passing through them and, as Carthusians learn in their
Novitiate, don't slam them, but gently turn the doorknob. Step by step you will discover
silence.
10. Interrupt your movements frequently. Breathe deeply and invoke the Lord before and
after each step. Be quiet. Don't hurry either in speaking or responding.
11. Don't hurry to do this or that. In advance of any work or obligation, says a proverb,
be distrustful of your own urgency.
12. Be firm in your convictions, but be always willing to embrace the truth.
13. Work in silence, without saying what you do. Don't look for recognition or applause.
Accept what Providence itself affords you in relation to your actions.
14. Know, in all that you undertake, that your true country is Heaven and that now you
find yourself in the mystery of exile. But don't forget that you will find Heaven is
already in your soul. Your spirit itself anticipates eternity.
15. Don't settle down in nor get tied to a rigid time table. Stay within a harmonious order
that you can, easily, change. Also look for beauty in the passing of time.
16. Try to integrate surprise , that is: the unexpected. Don't vanish before it does. The
contemporary life abounds in what is not expected. On occasions you are tried by the
devil's traps in order that you may lose balance along the road. Don't pay attention nor
become distressed at all that occurs. Continue as if nothing had occurred, living in the
silence of your own interior. Cultivate peace.
17. Learn how to live in a few minutes or, perhaps, in a few hours, what others live in
the length of all their time. Thus with solitude, retirement and withdrawal . . . be
a monk one day at a time. Take advantage of the moments and the dawns. Discover in
the hours and in landscapes, in music and in all manifestations of beauty, the profundity
of your true interior solitude.
18. It has been said that the true person is of the true day: of the eternal day. You are
capable of living a lifetime in only one day. Maybe because all your days' journeys are
forever. Turn yourself then, reader and pilgrim, toward the last day. Each instant will
deliver you Eternity.
19. Learn how to prolong the privileged moments when time is traversed vertically. It is
so with the Mass as in all celebrations of the Liturgy in which one has participated. And
yet there are still distances in time and space. One yourself within to the life unseen
which, however, requires your prayer and your vigil.
20. Likewise in the instances of silence and withdrawal. Especially may you discover
the religious mystery of the night and make of those hours your own desert.
21. Keep in mind that to keep vigil in the night can be better than to hide yourself in the
depths of the desert. Solitude - as André Louf has said - is a portion of the world that
serves the hermit by placing him in the universe . The portion that now belongs to you
is time. Watch and pray, whenever possible, and extend your vigil into every hour.
22. Keep in mind what Saint Isaac the Syrian taught: if a monk, for reasons of health, is
unable to fast, his spirit can, solely through vigils, gain purity of heart and learn how to
know in fullness the power of the Holy Spirit. Because only the person who perseveres in
vigils can understand the glory and the force hidden in the monastic life.
23. Persist in vigilance by means of brief prayers. Practice spiritual reading and, where
possible, pray daily all the hours of the Divine Office.

SECOND PART
General elements
The reader needs to remember his position in relation to the world, at the same time that
he has left all for God. The exact formulation is as follows: one has turned from oneself
and heard the call of the Lord who is one's life. Rather than any later decision, one has
prostrated oneself in adoration. With this is recognized the primacy of contemplation.
Now, with abandonment, be a pilgrim and observe:
24. Not to settle down in time or space. To give up with determination any form
of power, even when it appears convenient or has the pretext of contributing to
the apostolate . To be robbed of any means and to be presented in the Name and Word of
God. Not to appeal to any entangling alliance nor be served by one.
25. Not to inhabit any transitory space spiritually. Christians inhabit the world but they
are not of the world. Christians live passingly in corruptible habitations, while they
await the incorruption of heaven (Ep. Diogn. VI. 3 and 8). They inhabit their own
countries as strangers. . . . All foreign territory is to be for them a homeland and all
homelands foreign (Ibid. V.5). To be, therefore, a pilgrim in the desert of this world.
26. To abandon everything in the Lord. To abandon everything is a consequence
of metanoia. What characterizes the interior desert is total abandonment in the
Lord. Christian freedom from suffering - Hans Urs von Balthazar has said - is the
opposite of a technique made to protect oneself from suffering; it is a pure abandonment
to eternal love, beyond both pleasure and pain. To put aside anxieties and restlessness.
Péguy said there is no bigger sin than restlessness, unless it be laziness.
27. Renunciation of any power in this world acts to arm oneself against one's own
weariness. The same word 'kopos' used by St John (John 4.38) and by St Paul (1
Corinthians 3.8) to designate the weariness of the apostolate is employed by the
Apostolic Fathers to express a monk's labour.
28. To let go of any compromise implicit in the power of this world, certainly, and
prepare yourself for contemplation and the work of God alone.
29. The pilgrim has nothing to fear from the effort but to place confidence in the grace
of the Lord with humility and patience. Have present the following text of
Diadocus: Impassivity does not consist in not being attacked by demons, since then one
would have to be out of this world, as the Apostle says (1 Cor. 5.10), but in remaining
unassailable when they attack us' (XCVIII.160).
30. Practice internal silence according to the following apothegm: Abbot Isaac was
seated one day next to Abbot Poimen when he heard the crowing of a cock. So he said,
'Can you hear that, Abbot?' The other replied, 'Isaac, why do you force me to speak?
You and those who resemble you listen to those sounds, but the vigiler doesn't worry
about them.' (Poimen 107, Sentence 245).
31. To convert yourself into a disciple who knows how to listen and discern. On many
occasions sounds manifest silence. Indeed, the important thing is not what arrives but
how we receive it.
32. To remain weak and vulnerable, without strength, without compromising alliances,
without treaties or defences. Instead of spiritualities, to give way to the Spirit.
33. Have your heart fixed on God and when you endure adversity or suffer some loss, or
whatever it may be, don't feel sorry for yourself nor reflect on it. Don't keep it in your
memory nor dwell on it. Pass above the miseries of this world, respecting and accepting
the level of each thing.

THIRD PART
Withdrawal
34. Withdrawal is essential to this Rule. One understands by withdrawal the internal
unification of the person in the Presence of God.
35. Still, should one be unable, for a valid reason, to observe one or another of the
articles of the Rule, this third part will suffice to fulfill it.
36. To live in the Presence of God at all times and in all places and to subject everything
to that.
37. These articles do not refer, of course, to as much as concerns a Christian's condition
as such. They presuppose a call to sanctity and to union with God. On the other hand,
they point to the customary withdrawal of those who perceive a special vocation to
contemplation and to intimacy with the Lord.
38. Contemplation consists in attending to and adhering to the Presence of God in the
depth, root, and centre of our being. Keeping in mind that this is a grace, live it and pray
for it constantly. Remember that the contemplative doesn't know more or less than
another, but rather - as a Carthusian said - is capable of ecstasy where others pass by
with indifference.
39. Contemplation is not a pilgrimage to knowledge but a call to an experience that
transcends every road, every plan.
40. Put aside an infinite time for God. Practice, assiduously, spiritual reading.
41. If, sometime, you find yourself in an adverse environment and should discover that
the nearest things are the most distant, transform everything into a school for charity and
learn to transcend, from top to bottom, the impositions of any place.
42. Don't permit strife. Be faithful and constant. Escape the labyrinths. Effort is always
healthy. Persevere under trials.
43. Silence and withdrawal . God alone suffices. In a pure heart there are no more
dissonances nor distances from God. Be open to the Mystery and be found in conformity
with the Father's Will. Authentic silence is the same as a pure heart, like and oned with
the Heart of God. You will be able, after all, to live in a complete silence when you rest
yourself without difficulty, like a child, in the Lord Himself.
44. Silence consists, above all, in being quiet so as to be always ready to hear something
greater. Leave your analyses and the avalanche of your deductions. Allow silence to be
manifested within your interior self. It is possible to be very determined in all types of
activities and at the same time to enjoy the silence that is the heritage of the soul and an
expression of God.
45. Commit neither violence nor abuse no matter what happens. Respect things as they
are and don't rush to respond or to intervene in what may be. Look on things with
benevolence. Everything is in your favour.
46. Liberate yourself from everything that doesn't concern you. Don't depend on people
or on situations. Silence the voices that take analysis to excess. Look for your refuge and
your help only in God. You will never be defrauded.
47. Pureness of heart. Oned in the Lord. You go to God by God. God is the same as your
life. Just as invoking the Name of Jesus recalls him constantly, the Presence of the Lord
Himself is in your interior unity and intimacy in Him.
48. Meet the mystery of the desert in your own interior and then eventually in what
surrounds it.
49. Every desolation or trial will be able to drive you on, if He wants it so, to the
Mystery of Christ.
50. It is characteristic of the solitary hermit to be with the Lord in his Agony. Offer and
consecrate the hours and the suffering, being conscious of their fruitfulness.

In a sense, the presence of this Rule for Hermits, demonstrates the fruitfulness of being a
hermit in the world. Padre Fray Alberto Justo, O.P., in Argentina, found the Juliansite on
the Web, sent his Regla para Eremitas to us, James Hannay in England and America
then translating it, Bob King finding out how to do upside down Spanish questions
marks in HTML for us, Julia Holloway in Italy next placing it on the Web. Now we just
need an Italian translator! In the process we came to realize, as words in its text were
coming to the fore that are also present in Don Divo Barsotti, C.F.D.'s vocabulary, that
Padre Justo had stayed at San Sergio ten years ago! The world is a global hermitage!